Aside from the Federal Reserve, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand also has a monetary policy announcement this afternoon. The RBNZ is expected to keep rates unchanged – hard to validate a rate hike when the RBA is planning to ease. Also, the last time the RBNZ met, Governor Bollard said “sustained strength in NZD would reduce the need for further increases in the cash rate.” – So it doesn’t look like rate hikes are in the pipeline until there is more evidence of a recovery. Nonetheless, here’s a table of how the economy changed since the last meeting: